CNMI does well in Domatsuri event in Japan

A CNMI delegation of dancers and 2005 Liberation Day royalty wowed over two million visitors at the recently held 5th Domatsuri Dance Competition in Nagoya, Japan, impressing the crowd with their performance and outfits and increasing people’s awareness about the Northern Marianas.

Pacific Development Inc. marketing manager and program coordinator Gordon Marciano said that, despite a passing typhoon late last month in Nagoya, the CNMI delegates and performers landed safely at the airport in time for their scheduled cultural performance. The group was in the non-competition category.

2005 Liberation Queen Yvonne Passi and Royal Princess Nicole Robert joined the local performers and brought smiles to the estimated two million people who attended the three-day festival, said Marciano.

“Some of the people of Nagoya and nationwide Japan who had arrived in Nagoya to attend the festival have never witnessed a CNMI performance and some were surrounding the group with amazement; some were touching the group’s attires as though they have never seen a coconut leaf,” he said.

Marciano said he was able to speak with some of the elderly spectators that night and they told him that they were waiting for the CNMI group to go up on stage and see them perform.

The Domatsuri Dance Competition featured 20,000 performers taking turns to perform during the three-day event.

On the third day, Marciano said the CNMI team was honored as the first team to bring changes to the biggest event in Japan. The organizers thanked the CNMI team for their performance on stage and in the parade, saying during the awarding ceremony that the CNMI’s performance has inspired them to foster and accommodate other cultures to the event.

Marciano said the event coordinators are looking at the possibility of holding next year’s event on Saipan. He said the organizers and the CNMI team are eyeing the possibility of having 20,000 or more Domatsuri dancers perform in the CNMI all at the same time. He said, though, that the Commonwealth still needs to prepare the islands for such an event.

“We need to talk to our Chamber of Commerce since the Nagoya [chamber of] commerce is one of the big sponsors of this event, along with the government of Nagoya,” said Marciano.

The group will return to the CNMI to meet with government officials and other private and nonprofit groups to begin discussions on this.

CNMI team members acknowledged the help of Domannaka Committee members in Nagoya, the Mayor of Nagoya, PDI, KNT, Marianas Visitors Authority, Saipan Mayor Juan B. Tudela, 2005 Liberation Committee, and Rep. Ray Tebuteb and his colleagues at the Legislature.